Alright folks, the mrs and I are looking for a car, decent size and condition, but we've not got that much to spend. Looking to keep it below £700 if possible.

We're going to have a look at an Astra estate at the weekend for £450 which sounds too good to be true, so if anyone knows of anything similar around, give me a shout.

Cheers, Darren.

Hi Darren, you can pick up real bargains at this time of year on Scottish Autotrader. When you're down at about £700 you've really got to buy privately (which I suspect you intend to do).

In my opinion you are wiser to go for makes with a reputation for longevity and reliability rather than just buying a newer car in the 'Korean' bracket. I'd also advise you to be careful of buying from friends and family as things can go sour with nobody to blame.

I'd suggest targeting a VW Golf diesel wih a full service history if at all possible.

Thanks for the info. We've been looking at trying to pick up an estate to be honest due to the size, which might come in handy for moving some stuff to Austria that we're planning on doing later in the year.

Spoke to a gentleman from Helensburgh that's selling an Astra Estate 1.6, 11 years old with 2 previous owners. All looks pretty good so I'll go have a look at it this weekend. I don't even have my licence yet so the good lady will be doing all the driving until I pass, which is possibly going to kill us insurance-wise as her driving licence is non-UK. Looking at around double the value of the Astra for a year's insurance, which doesn't fill me with more excitement.

A diesel would be the preferred option, but decent runners at the price we're looking at are hard to come by.

The search continues.

Good luck.

Darren I had a quick scan of Autotrader and there aint many estates around that fit your price and look reliable. This is outside your stated budget, but it's the sort of info you want -low mileage, full serivice history etc. Bear in mind that you can fold the back seat forward in a hatchback and it becomes a mini-estate car.
VW Golf

Cheers for that Ernie, it will certainly be considered although I do feel that it will be a little too small for what we're after, even with the seats folded down.

I'll have a wee nosey about on some sites later and see what I can come up with, but lots of the sort of car I'm after are available through word of mouth mainly, hence why I've posted on here.

There are also freebie mags out each week with loads of the cheaper cars in them. Quite a lot of folk who can only get less than a grand grudge paying much to advertise.

Good shout, I seem to recall my old man buying the ScotAds magazine quite a bit a few years back now, I guess that is still knocking about.

I think you'll see at least one in Morrisons.

Try Jim Neill. He owns the scrappie/garage at the bottom of Dellingburn Street/Regent Street and can get cars for pretty much any budget.

Cheers, will do that.

It's actually just hit me that I have an uncle i Paisley that owns a scrapyard. I'm sure he would be a good person to contact

Wouldn't it be best to pass your test first

Well the Mrs can drive so she'll be the one that owns the car...at least until I pass my test and take over. Just to accentuate my masculine superiority.

Check me out using big words...VikinTon eat your knob off!

And by that time you will have been in the swing of things mate and joing the slateyermissusdriving.com

There is a 1999 Ford Focus estate car for sale in todays tilly, £500.

Bookmarked

On the work's computer of course, wouldn't want her to be seeing it on the home computer

Excellent, will grab a copy on the way home then.

You see, sometimes buying the Tele actually is worth the money.

edit - bought a copy of the paper on thr way home from work, tried to call the number in the advert, and it says I have dialled an incorrect number. I retract my pervious statement about the Tele!

Went to look at the Astra estate this morning over in Helensburgh, looks like we're getting a cracking deal for 450 sheets to be honest. Now to get a decent insurance quote...not going to be easy considering that my girlfriend (the policy holder) has never driven in the UK before.

Good luck with finding a decent insurance quote, they are sky high just the now. My daughter is desperate to get her own car but the insurance costs are to high.

click

I don't know how useful but there are several links.

Looking like it's going be about £900 per year Double the price of the car, how can that be fair?



Thanks for that, I've had a wee nosey but it's mainly just advice. The search goes on.

I wouldn't bother with insurance to be honest, it's a waste of money.

Insurance is a bugger, especially if you're just starting out.

West of Scotland brokers near the Loretto club are quite good at finding deals, only other thing I would suggest is to try doing it through Moneysavingexpert or a cash back site, might save you a little bit.

Quid Co

Best of luck!

Don't think that's an issue mate, as long as she has a full driving license from any EU country it's shouldn't affect the premium.

I moved from the UK to the Netherlands with a UK licesnce, then to France with a Dutch license, and then to Belgium with a French license, and I've never been penalised for having a licence from another EU country when it came to insurance. Even my full no-claims bonuses were transferrable from country to country.

So unless UK insurers have different rules she shouldn't have to pay a higher premium because she has an Austrian license.

Interesting. I've been led to believe, from doing some reading on the web, that if your driving licence is non-UK then you are considered as a higher insurance risk as you will not be used to driving on the left hand side of the road etc.

Looks like the UK insurance companies are just being arseholes then. Tonight will be spent on the phone to them all, trying to drive their prices down a bit, as we're point blank refusing to pay £900 a year insurance for a £450 car.

It is possible UK insurers have different rules than the rest of the EU, so yeah, you're best to check it out.

Worse case she could swap her Austrian license for a UK one, as she is entitled to do as a UK resident with a license from another EU country. I've swapped my license twice (UK to Dutch and Dutch to French) and all driving rights were transferred.

Yep, we've looked into that one also, and played around with the quotes to show that she has a UK licence, but it didn;t make too much of a difference to the price. The major issue I guess is that she's never been the main driver on an insurance policy before, so doesn't have any No Claims Bonus, and that she's only 20. The search goes on, but we've committed to buying the car tomorrow afternoon so we'll need to get the finger out tonight, otherwise it's just going to be sitting outside our place.

Some insurers do a short term policy that will cover you for the day you buy the car.
You need to give them all your details as if you were taking out a standard policy but so long as you cancel within 7 days it doesn't cost you anything.

We had to do this a few months ago with Aviva as our usual insurers couldn't get the documents of the new policy to us in time.

You see, there's me potentially being dense again. I just presumed that as soon as you agree your policy, you can drive straight away, but you're saying that we would need to wait on documents coming out to us before we could drive legally? That could put a spanner in the works if true.

I'm sure with Direct Line insurance at least you're covered immediately.

Right so it's dependant on the insurer then. Best to clear that up when taking out the policy then.

I recently took out building and contents insurance with Direct Line and the cover was immediate, so I assume it's the same with car insurance. Best check though.

Need a certificate for the Road tax though, don't think they accept print outs.

The car is taxed until the end of the year so I wouldn't imagine that will be an issue, right?

I dunno, anytime I've sold a car I've taken the tax disc and got my money back for it.

I'd check the DVLA site to be sure.

Will do, although the ad for the car did say that it was taxed until the end of November. My girlfriend has to go to Helensburgh to pick it up tomorrow so the tax disk better be kept on it otherwise that's another in a long list of problems we've got to deal with

You simply tell the insurer the specific time from which you want cover to commence. That is standard as far as I'm aware.

I'd agree with that, I'm fairly sure when I bought a new car from Uncle Arnold I had to provide a cover note to prove I was insured but fairly certain that was just to cover their own arses, with a private sale I would be surprised if you needed to provide anything.

Phone the insurance company to make sure your covered before you get the car just to protect yourself.